more thoughts on PVR-350 sage saga

[Scriber]

Originally posted by maximumpig
I know you're all waiting with bated breath for further updates, so here goes:

installed sage tv and my pvr-350 on my old dell xps-r350 with the 440BX mobo and a 1.2ghz celeron....

and somewhere along the way messed things up for myself because now I get this green screen and the hw-out freezes but the prog itself does not lock up and I don't need to reboot to kill the frozen process or quit and restart sage--but I do need to reboot in order to get hw-out working again.

Bummer, I've got nearly the same setup ready to install per your previous posts (my prior difficutly was a RAM issue) and I waited to see how you came out...

I see the green screen w/my current setup - i820 mobo with the PL and 1.2G C. Like you, there is no impact on Sage but to regain 350 out a reboot is needed. I think this occurs after resuming from standby or hibernate but I'm not totally sure. Do you ever get during playback or just at the start? If you get this figured out be sure to post.

I may also try on a i815 mobo w/o the PL.

[maximumpig]

i just get it during playback--it usually starts out ok, actually, and then turns green after a minute or two, sometimes longer. last night it was running for a good 1/2 hour without problem and both I and sage went to sleep happy.

that was before I installed client on another pc (the one that gave me the probs in the 1st place) and before I installed the usb-uirt.

I am back to thinking maybe it's a heat issue so I just bought a vantec chipset hs/f set ($10.00 at newegg) but I don't even know if that will fit on the card or what. At worst I'll just tape the fan to the existing heatsink on the pvr-350 with thermal tape.

Worf suggested 3d acceleration may be the problem so I'll fool around with that a little.

also i am putting the usb-uirt driver on the suspect list--will compare operation with that installed and with it uninstalled.

and of course I will report back.

[spanky]

FWIW - Borrowed a friends system with the i850 chipset with a P4 1.4. Installed a 350 and a 250 (22037 drivers) and the latest SageTV beta. Started both encoders recording. Left software decode enabled and then enabled UI on the 350 output and no lockups. This setup has been running for over 24 hours without issue. For good measure I also have the system serving a steady stream of MPEGs to an MediaMVP on another TV. The MVP is connected to the system via crossover. So far I am encouraged by this but I will leave it up and running a few more days.

[roco]

on my latest attempt with the PVR 350 and OSD with UI, I am saddend that I it is still unstable!

can anyone reccomend a good VGA to TV converter? I am now prepared to spend another $100 on this type of converter after sage convinced me to buy the pvr 350 because of the OSD and video out that I could expect with release 2. this has been depressing. -roco

[krutaw]

Originally posted by roco
on my latest attempt with the PVR 350 and OSD with UI, I am saddend that I it is still unstable!

can anyone reccomend a good VGA to TV converter? I am now prepared to spend another $100 on this type of converter after sage convinced me to buy the pvr 350 because of the OSD and video out that I could expect with release 2. this has been depressing. -roco

Well, you could do that... or you could do what I did and invest another $25.00 in a cheap throw-away PC on ebay.

Here's the model I bought:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...122270930&rd=1

Anyway, basically I've downgraded my sagetv box to get it to be stable. While it bothers me to have to do it, it was nice in a way, because now I use my higher end system for video editing before exporting to DVD.

[TunaBoo]

Originally posted by roco
on my latest attempt with the PVR 350 and OSD with UI, I am saddend that I it is still unstable!

can anyone reccomend a good VGA to TV converter? I am now prepared to spend another $100 on this type of converter after sage convinced me to buy the pvr 350 because of the OSD and video out that I could expect with release 2. this has been depressing. -roco

VGA to TV will not look good. Ebay your 350- rebuy a 250 on ebay for $90, and put the money towards a $50 geforce with s-video out.

Ta-da, free fix

[ckron]

Some of you might remember another thread that I started in which I had tried my PVR-350 in an old 440BX MB that I had lying around. I switched it back after one day because I needed to clear off a bigger HDD to put in it and dig up some more RAM out of my office.

Well, last weekend I moved to my 440BX machine permanantly. I now have 512MB of SDRAM and a 120GB HDD ( see my updated signature). Everything is working very well. I have had to reboot twice since I installed the OS. Why you ask? Because my SUS server had pushed updates for the OS. When I am recording, the CPU utilization stays down around 7-10%. The only time it spikes up is when I am using the UI. Even then it does not go over 50%. Not to shabby considering this thing has crappy ATI Rage 4MB onboard video and only 500MHz CPU.

***TO THOSE WITH A STANDARD TV AND A PVR-350, I SAY USE AN OLDER PC AND DEDICATE IT TO PVR ***

a morning must


this is how happy I am with SageTV


P.S. The WAF is steadily increasing in my house. My wife now complains when she has to watch something live because she can't skip commercials.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by ckron
P.S. The WAF is steadily increasing in my house. My wife now complains when she has to watch something live because she can't skip commercials.

AMEN BROTHA! My WAF is sky high now because of the PVR-350 as well.

[krutaw]

Originally posted by TunaBoo
VGA to TV will not look good. Ebay your 350- rebuy a 250 on ebay for $90, and put the money towards a $50 geforce with s-video out.

Ta-da, free fix

I completely disagree. The PVR-350 is worth the headaches. They should steal Porsche's slogan..


PVR-350... There is no substitute.

Seriously though, I have yet to see a video card (AT ANY PRICE) that will keep up with the video quality of the PVR-350. Buck the headaches a little longer until you find your niche.. it's worth it.

[Scriber]

Originally posted by krutaw
Well, you could do that... or you could do what I did and invest another $25.00 in a cheap throw-away PC on ebay.

Here's the model I bought:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...122270930&rd=1

Anyway, basically I've downgraded my sagetv box to get it to be stable. While it bothers me to have to do it, it was nice in a way, because now I use my higher end system for video editing before exporting to DVD.

I agree BUT which chipsets are confirmed to be trouble free with the 350? The 440Bx, nforce (1, 2, 3), and ATI 9100 only or…?? It would be nice to know with some degree of certanty which works which doesn't. I think someone mentioned before that some sort of FAQ on what works would be nice.

Your HP has an i815 right?? Need to add it to the FAQ.

Thanks to Maximumpig's progress reports regarding the 350, I scrounged for a 440bx mobo (using it w/a powerleaped 1.2G Celeron too) and so far the 350 works – except it won’t work after resuming from hibernation (the mobo doesn't even support standby according to XP!!). Who'd think a 440bx is better than an i865....

[maximumpig]

actually i am still too scared to experiment too much with osd+ui--it just so happened that I have an ATI-AIW-Radeon 7200 in the 440BX box and I am using the vid-out on that, which is pretty nice.

as some of you may know from following my other thread, I had some sort of wacky problem with the USB-UIRT on my 440BX box which caused several days of frustration (solved by using a USB 2.0 PCI card)

now that that is solved, and once I have a few days of trouble-free operation under my belt, i will no doubt once again start messing around with the config, including pvr-350 hardware UI OSD. I mean, what else am I gonna do with my free time? actually watch some of the stuff I'm recording? nawww . . .

I *can* confirm that without the USB-UIRT installed, I seemed to have very stable operation of the hardware out including the UI on the 440BX.

i have never really understood hibernation or standby or any of that and they always seemed to cause a ton of issues in a variety of situations (not just Sage) so i'm not gonna start messin around with that now.

That 440BX is a legendary mobo. I remember my brother telling me to wait six months to buy a pc so I could get Dell's XPS-R400--one of the first retail pre-builts w/ that board--in 1997!!--and it served me really well until I decommissioned it just about 6 months ago--and now it's just so nice to resurrect it and have it serve up south park, sopranos, star trek and simpsons. brings tears to my eyes, it does.

[Scriber]

Originally posted by maximumpig
now that that is solved, and once I have a few days of trouble-free operation under my belt, i will no doubt once again start messing around with the config, including pvr-350 hardware UI OSD. I mean, what else am I gonna do with my free time? actually watch some of the stuff I'm recording? nawww . . .

I *can* confirm that without the USB-UIRT installed, I seemed to have very stable operation of the hardware out including the UI on the 440BX.

Oh, i guess I was on the cutting edge with my 440BX No issues seen here thus far.

That 440BX is a legendary mobo.

No doubt. The biggest downside I've noticed is that on my 440bx the BIOS boots soooo slooooow. But with the PL once she gets her act together she runs XP like a champ. Another downside is that my old 6GB HD (OS only) is soooo loud; the constant whine drives me nuts. Never was a problem when it was new though! I guess that's some progress...

[stanger89]

Originally posted by Scriber
Another downside is that my old 6GB HD (OS only) is soooo loud; the constant whine drives me nuts. Never was a problem when it was new though! I guess that's some progress...

You could always put in a 2.5" notebook drive.

[Scriber]

Originally posted by stanger89
You could always put in a 2.5" notebook drive.

Yea, I'll replace it at some point one way or another. Its just struck me as funny I didn't notice how loud it was then since now my newer drives are nearly silent. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised that the mobo could handle my 120GB Maxtor that I use for recordings.